can’t wait to see hearings if this is in fact where this is going….”so mister paulson…sounds like you saw you’re $900 million dollar goldman sachs fortune about to go up in smoke…so you threw together the bailout???”

great wsj on how the stock market ‘rally’ of the past 6 months is nothing more than a massive money bubble inflating stocks & commodities.

excerpt:

“In mid-May, Mr. Bernanke’s outlook seemed to change. Maybe he didn’t approve of the sharp housing rebound — like we need more houses! Maybe he saw inflation in commodity prices — oil popping to $72 from $35. Or, more likely, he finally realized that he was the market and took his foot off the money accelerator, as evidenced in the contracting monetary base (see nearby chart). Sure enough, things rolled over — the market dropped 7.5% from its peak, oil prices dropped almost 17%, and even gold has lost some of its luster. But in July, the Fed started buying again and the market rallied.”

“The question I have, of course, is why is the Obama administration, which has decried corporate greed whenever it’s politically feasible, allowed Goldman all the advantages of a bank, when it is really a big hedge fund?”

“Now with all the government help, Goldman is marching its way back up to $235 a share—trading at around $150 Monday—by embracing much of the same risk that nearly led to its demise. It would be nice, though, if the next time Goldman losses money taxpayers didn’t foot the bill.”